Consumer electronic devices are ubiquitous in the world we live in today. From laptop computers and personal digital assistants to multimedia players and mobile phones, people today own a wide variety of electronic devices. These electronic devices come with a wide variety of power supplies, sometimes referred to as “wall warts,” “power bricks,” or “power adapters.” Unfortunately, these power supplies are often specific to the device type, device manufacturer, and/or device product line, and are therefore incompatible with each other. If user loses a power supply for a device, the power supply of another device generally cannot be used as a substitute. This causes many problems. Travel is made more inconvenient by the prospect of having to bring multiple power supplies for various portable devices. A device may be damaged and/or its useful life shortened if the wrong power supply is used. Furthermore, as devices become obsolete and are discarded by users, the power supplies for the devices may be discarded as well because users often do not have other devices that are compatible with these power supplies.
Attempts have been made to resolve the problem associated with incompatible power supplies. One attempt involves a common power supply with a swappable interface between the power supply and the device to be powered. An example of this attempt is iGo (a trademark of Mobility Electronics, Inc.), which employs swappable connector tips. However, this attempt does not adequately solve the problems of incompatibility (the tips are still device/manufacturer/product-line specific), damage to a device caused by the use of the wrong tip, and waste caused by obsolescence.
Accordingly, what is needed is a power supply that can be used to power a wide variety of devices without resorting to device-specific interfaces.